


The Botched Incident

by rotburn



Series: What is Made can be Undone [1]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: M/M, Pre-Relationship, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-27
Updated: 2019-02-27
Packaged: 2019-11-06 07:00:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17935049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rotburn/pseuds/rotburn
Summary: Mostly a neutral individual who creates to push the boundaries of possibilities, Ink has a complex relationship to all the alternate universes that he fostered into existence. Behind the intricate and fluctuating energies that tie the multiverse together, something unexpected occurs that forces Ink to seek the least most likely monster for help. And Error is not pleased.





	The Botched Incident

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own Undertale or these characters.  
> I do not make a single penny from this fanfiction...

~*.*~

 

~*That which is Missing must be Found*~

 

Black flames dissipate as the once rampant and ill-begotten _thing_ met its miserable end. Its last menacing bellow vibrating through the coding of the usually peaceful universe. The screech faded and those eyes that blazed with a malevolent purple turned entirely black.

 

Ink lowers the weaponized brush he once named Broomy, chest heaving and clothing smoking in places where the creature had shredded the material. His eye-lights flicker between symbols, skull dotted with sweat and a wave of nausea forces him to both knees. The foul stench of burnt iron and rotten wood made the delicate soul-shaped container quake in disgust. Paint overflows and bursts out from behind Ink’s teeth, the mess of color splashing against the rock strewn ground.

 

Feeling emptier, yet less stressed by the previous swirling emotions, Ink wipes the excess paint from his mandible. Carefully, the protector goes about briskly checking himself for serious damages. Aside from aching joints and superficial cuts, Ink is clear. He slowly rises to stand. With an effective swish of his conjured tongue, the skeleton spits the remaining residue from the cavity of his mouth.

 

It's deathly quiet on the Snowdin street- turned massive battlefield. All previous screaming has ceased. Eerie purple fire glows through the haze of lingering dust and smoke, eating away at the mangled buildings left in ruin. Forms move restlessly just outside the rubble that he finds himself within. Ink steps forward, eye-lights returning to a simple pale tint.

 

_Drained. Nothingness…_

 

What is he supposed to be doing?

 

Automatically, Ink glances down as he raises a hand to lift the edge of his scarf. Along the fabric is his scribbled writing in bright neon orange. The choppy message reading:

 

_Summoned_

_Save AU_

_Unknown Attacker_

_Intruder?_

 

The information is enough to jog a vague memory of being brought to this world. There's a blur of pushing past a Papyrus that used an emergency summoning ritual. The a whirlwind of fighting some strange atrocity that didn’t belong. He needs to investigate further.

 

Just a feet away, Ink finds the mangled humanoid husk. It is scorched. Red stains from his own attacks and puddles of evaporating goop also cover the bulging deformity. Unceremoniously, he nudges the largest portion, kicking the top layer away. Its softer than he expects, the motionless body giving way to ash and deteriorating into smaller particles. A puff of noxious fumes drifts upward and Ink leans back as it passes. Deeming it safe enough to inspect, the curious artist hunches down and uses Broomy's handle to dig through the waste.

 

Minutes tick by during his analysis and at the edge of Ink's peripheral, a short monster staggers into view. The small skeleton coughs and blinks back tears. With a quick glance, he mentally notes the other as a Sans who's personality aligns similar to an Underswap Blue, with minuscule tweaks being a younger, empathic and watchful. Though Ink forgot already which universe he’s currently in, he shrugs the information away, because in the greater scheme of things, it doesn't actually matter. The place is saved from disappearing. There are no more unknown enemies in the code. And the summoning ritual had gone surprisingly well for a newer invention. Or is it an older invention at this point?

 

“M-Mr. Ink. Whatta Ya Doin?”

 

He shifts deeper into the shriveled cadaver. It takes him longer to answer than usual, and when he does it’s devoid of emotion. “Searching for clues.”

 

“Um. Pwease.” The little Sans scrubs at his sockets with an oversized sweater, eye-lights jittering and trying to look anywhere than at the terrifying _thing_ that had wrecked the Underground. His voice cracks on the verge of breaking down. “Mr. Ink, Can Ya Pwease Ha-Ha-Halp Me Brotha?”

 

Desensitized to the other skeleton's grief, he ignores Sans in favor of checking every inch to the fallen enemy. In the region of a deformed chest, Ink finds something foreign. Palming the object, he pulls it free. Ink hesitates to get a better look when the smaller monster shuffles closer to him.

 

“Pwea-Pweaseee.” With a desperation uncharacteristically felt, the Sans clutches at the godlike being, words caught between heaving whimpers. “He’s Hart! Sooo Hart! I Dunno Watta Do!”

 

“Reset.” Ink responds, shrugging off the tiny hands and stretching to his full height. Pocketing the circular piece he found, the artist looks down at the crying creation. Somewhere deep in his subconscious Ink considers what it would take to show some form of sympathy. Maybe a smile? A frown? It’s too hard to _remember_ what emotions even feel like without being full to the brim with magical paints. Would he be sad? Filled with the need to help? Or possibly, would he be jealous? Jealous that this sheltered version of himself has a soul, has a brother, has a world to belong to… “This place will RESET. Your brother will be back to normal.”

 

“Wa? Pwease-W-Wait!”

 

Ink walks around the shorter, pushing those pleading hands away again. He halts suddenly. Another monster appearing from thin air. Fingers tighten around his paintbrush, Ink forces his instincts to calm as he recognizes the Papyrus. Those orange eye-lights leak in wispy trails, confusion etched along a scarred and bleeding face.

 

“bro?” The taller of the three wobbles, unable to focus properly, holding the front of his denim jacket close as magic drips with every shift of movement.

 

“Brotha! Nuuu! Doncha Be Up! Down! Down!” Sans cries, rushing forward and helping Papyrus to sit on a surface that wasn’t torn from massive claw marks and splotches of paint.

 

“s-sans…”

 

Detached and rigid, Ink stares as Papyrus engulfs Sans in a one-armed hug, the other limb twisted and broken beyond healing. Sans bawls louder, his weaping joining a cacophony of ascending voices throughout the Underground. Monsters beginning the search of wounded and dusted loved ones among the wreckage.

 

Ink mindlessly touches the balled item in his pocket. A shade lingers in his memory, itching to be known and rediscovered. He knows from experience that there’s something he has forgotten…

 

“we summoned you.”

 

He blinks from internal thoughts, eye-lights resting on the Papyrus that began speaking to him. Is he supposed to respond? “And I came.”

 

“yeah.” Papyrus pants, his only good hand weakly rubbing circles into the back of his brother’s sniffing skull. “you certainly did, and you caused about as much _chaos_ as that monstrosity did.”

 

Ink doesn’t bother responding. In the heat of battle, he’s known to lose himself. The adrenaline, excitement, and passion getting the better of him and causing Ink to fight with utter zeal. He has no way of expressing shame or regret right now though. So he keeps his mouth shut, understanding that anything that may slip from his teeth would be considered rude. Sans’s breathing slows as unconsciousness overtakes the little skeleton.

 

“you were supposed to help us. that’s your job right?” Papyrus grits his teeth, orange magic lightening into a golden pulsating warning. “you’re supposed to be a protector, that’s what the Dreamer said. that’s why he gave us a way to summon you for help!”

 

‘It’s time to leave,’ Ink thinks to himself, ‘before things get more complicated.’ Without ceremony, he turns his back on the two, boots crunching the debris further into the pathway.

 

“hey! come back here! what are we supposed to do now, huh? aren’t you supposed to care? aren’t you supposed to give a **_shit_ about what happens to us?!”**

 

The uncharacteristic curse and darker change in speaking causes Ink to pause, internally studying where the transition came from. His sight expands and the world around him alights with an overlay of coding. Symbols and sigils interconnected, describing every detail on everything in existence. Ink’s sockets peer over his shoulder, locking onto Papyrus.

 

‘Yeah. That arm is beyond saving for sure. Although, that certainly seems like it could be interesting.’ There, now lodged into Papyrus’s essence is a new strand of coding, affecting the processing of information directly in and out of the skeleton’s soul. If left, it will eventually cause the soul to evolve. Into what though? Ink ponders if he should rip it out, but that might very well kill Papyrus, and that isn’t a risk he wants to take. “This universe is going to RESET at some point. This intruder was a one-time thing and it won’t appear again. So just wait it out.”

 

Slashing the air with Broomy, Ink sprays paint into a gateway to return to the Doodle Sphere. Since he picked clean the ashen corpse, that missing information has been bugging him more and more with each passing second, into an urgency that he can’t pinpoint. He’s too restless to stay and fix the damage here.

 

Just as he steps through the portal, the entrance closing behind him, a fleeting thought reminds him that ‘older’ brothers tend to retain certain stains from anomalies… There will probably be a massive metamorphosis in Papyrus if left alone. That thought is abruptly swallowed by more pressing matters when he lands on the largest island in the Doodle Sphere.

 

It is a immense change from the purple-lit destruction to a realm of rich creativeness. Trickling water adds a tranquil sound along with tinkling bells that shift in a light breeze. Unique flowers bloom, sighing and swaying while a flock of strange birds flap past floating islands. Ink breathes in, exhaling a long breath. The moment sinks in and he starts his trek to search his wares for another hint.

 

At the center of the island, he’s erected a yurt acting as his sleeping quarters and an old train caboose for storage. He jumps onto the metal deck of the caboose and unlocks the folding door. Before entering, Ink snatches an oil lamp hanging on a rail, using a match to light the device. As soon as there’s a strong flame, he steps into the organized space and begins digging through baskets and boxes of supplies. Not any type of paper or parchment is missing… nor charcoal, graphite, ink, pastels.

 

He moves to the back of the caboose where several barrels are stacked and stored. At the end, against the wall, six barrels lay on a rack. Their silver nozzles gleam invitingly in the faint light. Ink sets down the lamp and busies himself. One by one, the protector fills each paint container on his belt and straps them back in place. Before leaving, he hunts down the mug he keeps on a hanging hook and pours a mixed cocktail of paints, chugging the drink in one swoop.

 

_Fulfillment. Satisfaction. Euphoria._

 

Ink totters to the door and fumbles with the lock. He blows out the light and replaces the lamp, before making his way to the yurt. The mockery of what a soul should be is built from a bare palette. **Anger** , **Sadness** , **Happiness** , **Fear** , **Surprise** , and **Disgust**. The basic emotions mingling and creating a doubled amount of feelings, and those feelings building into deeper insights of expression. The process is just as odd as every other time he has had to refill the empty vessel in his chest. Conflicting comfort with discomfort.

 

Vertigo makes Ink pause just inside the cozy yurt. He waits for the sensation to stop, eye-lights scanning over the unmade nest of bedding, a messy desk, and art junk shoved in various places. When he feels more inclined to move again, Ink pulls out the object he collected earlier. Eyeing it critically, he tries to chase fragments of ‘memories’ and ‘feelings’ to lead him down an intuitive path of understanding.

 

Dread begins to dawn on him the longer he pokes at the thing in his hand. The crisp and blackened folds hinting at it's previous form. A frown begins to arch onto his features. A trace of foreboding escalates sharply when he takes hold of a pointed piece, sticking out of the ball, and carefully tugs on it. There’s a crinkling sound. It comes undone, the surface becoming a wrinkled plane.

 

A shuddering gasp. The almost weightless item glides to the stylized rug. Ink’s eye-lights snap across the room. One socket containing a red exclamation point, the other a yellow warning symbol flashes. He suddenly throws himself at his desk. Barely registering the pain, the skeleton leans over the side to stare blankly at the empty container resting innocently below him.

 

“NO!”

 

Frantically, Ink drags the desk to the side, knocking over the chair. He collapses onto the floor and scrambles in search of the potentially disastrous contents that are missing. Flailing, he kicks up the rugs, lifts up the mattress and tears throw the rest of the room.

 

_Gone. Gone. Gone. GONE. GONE. GONE. GONE! GONE! GONE! GONEGONEGONEGONEGONEGONE!!!  
_

 

Without knowing how long he searches, Ink burns entirely through the emotion of **Fear** and finds himself sitting by the object he procured from the _thing_.

 

“No, not a _thing_.” Ink giggles, **Happiness** induced laughter rising from his shaking shoulders even as tears of **Sadness** slip down his zygomatic cheek bones. Both emotions trying to fill the gap of **Fear** that no longer exists in his soul. He waves what is now a smoothed piece of paper in the air, the painted form of a demonic creation he doodled without real effort, grinning from the two-dimensional drawing. “A botched idea... and they’re missing.”

 

His eye-lights, flickering through questions and stars, hearts and angry signals, land on the wastebasket that toppled over earlier.

 

“Every. Single. One.”

 

~*Chapter End*~

 

~*.*~

**Author's Note:**

> Please feed the author yummy kudos and comments to show support~  
> The author's soul is an empty pit and needs to be filled in order to continue.  
> (~T=T)~


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